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SPEECH 



HON. D. ¥. VOORHEES, 



OF INDIANA. 



DELTVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MAY 21, 1862. 

The House having under consideration the bills Nos. ITl and 1T2, Mr. VOOEHEES said : 
■ Mr. Speaker, The financial policy of a Government has always been consid- 
ered by men of reflections as second only in importance to national bonoi and 
nation-al existence. Indeed, no nation can long maintain ^^ 'honorable exit- 
enee which makes an unwise or a dishonest use of the resources of its people- 
It is a fundamental principle of constitutional liberty tlia the citizen ^^^all o wn 
and enioy the wealth which the labor of his hands extorts from the bosom of 
the eartl^ subject only to that portion which he may justly be ^a led upon to 
pay fow the i^otection of government and the b essings of social order He 
has this dominion over the fruits of his toil by divine right, and when thi rigU 
is invaded by the Government, through impolicy or fraud, and the citizen is rob- 
bed untr the forms of law, it becomes his highest duty to repel he invasion 
and r^ist the wrong. In a free Government this is done through he peacetul 
instrumentality of the ballot-box, and a change in the agents of t'^e pe;pl« 
who are responsible for the unnecessary oppression. In despotisms whcie the 
Dopular voice has no weight and cannot be heard, the toihng millions when 
they can endure no more, enfore justice with the sword. But the nght to a 
man's own, under all circumstances, is an inherent right, and human nature has 
held it saci-«d in all ages, and enforced it la every form in which the human will 

''''l TaveVeen L to these observations by what I humbly concieve to be the 
unsound, false, and ruinous system of finance which has been imposed upon the 
people of this country within the last twelve months and though I ha^ e not 
Fhe claims of age or extended experience, yet I.begto be '^''^'fj}^,^^\^^^l 
the House and the country while I submit my views in that regard The ^^ ants 
the wishes, the hopes, the fears, the feelings, and the thoughts ot the labo nng 
classes are all familiar to me. I was born one ot them, reared m then nnd.t 
and partook of their toil. I represent such a people on this floor and i 
feel my heart swell with pride when I call to my mind -the honest the 
loyal, the intelligent, and the industrious constituency whose inteie.ts and 
whose equality before the law in the distribution of the burdens of tbi Gov- 
ernment shall be my theme to-day. And with solemn /everence I heie say 
that as I shall prove faithful to them to the utmost oi my abilitj, and thus 
promote the true cause of American prosperity and glory, so may God, in His 
mercy, deal with me and mine. , 

Sir during the past year we have been engaged in a most stupendous war. 
Itas'umed, from the fiist, proportions of the most horrible magnitude. Any 
eye could 'see at the opening stages of this conflict that he struggle of this 
Government to maintain its just authority within its 'awful jurisdiction was to 
be one of the most terrible and, perhaps, protracted that ever shook the worid 
Courage chivalry, patriotism, devotion to the Union and the laws, all came 
forwafd'and still stand ready in an inexhaustible quantity. The country has 
glowed from end to end and throughout all its vast extent ^f^Jf^^^^^^t 
for the Government as our fathers made it. But, sordid and practical as it 



s '^ 

• V ^.4 

may seem to some, one of the main sinews of war is monej, plain money 
Without It armies do not move and navies do not float, and the purse of the 
nation IS to be found in the pockets of the people. Sir, in view of these facts, 
what has been the course of those in authority since the war commenced, in re- 
gard to the great question of national economy? Have our resources been 
carefully husbanded ? Have our public moneys been strictly guarded from the 
baud of the plunderer ? Have our public officers been held to a rigid account- 
ability m their use of the hard earned revenues of the country ? Has financial 
mtegnty marked the conduct of those in whom the people placed their trust 
when the present Administration came into power ? Has common honesty been 
observed bj those who won their way to popular confidence by their fierce de- 
nunciations of the alleged corruptions of former Administrations ? I speak not 
as a partisan nor in the spirit of party. I trust I can rise above all such con- 
siderations; but tliese are questions in which the people of all parties have a 
deep and overwhelming interest, and they are questions, too, which all men Ib 
every part of the country who desire -an honest administration of our pubHc 
affairs are now asking with serious and startling emphasis. The answer which 
must come, and of which impartial history will make an everlasting record, is 
one which b-jws the head and burns the chee-k of every lover of his country's 
good name with humiliation and with shame. 

Let us look calmly and carefully at a few fiijnres, not of alluring and capti- 
vating fancy, but figures of cold and repulsive reality. The vail which a 
pleasing and hopeful sophistry weaves around its object 'with 'which to beguile 
*u ^j^'i '"*" ^ slumbering sense of security must be torn away. Nothing 
should be hid from the honest eye of popular scrutiny. It is the duty of 
the Representative to fully portray those facts of vital importa'nce on which 
the governing power of this free country, the people, will soon be called upon 
to act. 

I presume, sir, that at this time no one can, with entire accuracy, e=?timate 
the amount of our public debt. It is one of the alarmino- sii^ns of the times 
ttiat either from confusion and incapaeit}', or from the shrinking dread of recog- 
nizing an appalling truth, we have an unusual silence in ofiRcial quarters in 
regard to the extent of Government liabilities. We are, however, relieved in 
a great measure upon that point, by the statements which have been made from 
time upon this floor, and especially by the chairman of the Committee of Ways 
and Means, [Mr. Stevexs,] who has a right to speak on that subject as one in 
authorit}^ From that source we learn that our expenditures have, for many 
months past, exceeded the enormous sum of §3.000,000 per day. One year's 
expense at this rate reaches the sum of $1,095,000,000. That our indebtedness 
at this moment is equal to that vast amount will hardlv be denied by any in- 
telligent and candid person who has Jiad the opportunity to observe" the pro- 
fusion and recklessness with which the resources and the credit of the Govern- 
ment have been used since this most unnatural strife fell like a blight upon the 
land. A little more than one year ago we beheld the inflamed and wrathful 
visage of .ivil war for the first time disturb, like a baleful comet, the peace of 
this Republic. Since then battles have been fought, equal in numbers Engaged, 
in heroism of conduct, and in the ghastly heaps of the slain, to the renow'ned 
conflicts of an ancient story. Victorj^^ too, under an overruling Providence, 
has chosen the standard of the Government, and our armies are"^steadiiy pen- 
etrating that immense scope of country in which the banner of revolt has been 
reared. 

But assuming that the smiles of fortune will continue to rest upon our arm.s, 
and that no reverses are in store for our troops, yet nothing is plainer to the 
thinking mmd which resolves the future by considering the pi\st than the fact 
that the expenses of this Government for tlie ensuing vear will fully equal, 
and most likely surpass, what we have witnessed in^the vear that "has just 
closed. As our armies push forward their columns into the 'distant parts of a 
desolated and impoverished and hostile country, the difl^icultv and cost of their 
support will rapidly multiply. The value of transportation will abnost doubls 
the price of the stores transported. There has been much undigested and 
crude declamation on this floor in regard to subsisting our forces on the pro- 
dncts of tlie country we invade. This, however, is simply one of those an- 



/ 



substantial theories which, unhappily for the country, have so plentifully 
abounded in this body since our national calamities came ilpon us. All the 
great authors on the art of war show its absurdity, and our own experience 
has already exploded it. It has already been found that where one armv has 
swept over a country, but a barren reception awaits another; and especially 
IS this the case when a retreating army is impelled by the strongest military 
reasons to leave nothing for the subsistence of its victorious pursuer. Destruc- 
tion then marks every field, and war, with its iron-mailed hand, scourges the 
bosom of nature herself into sterilitj^. Attila, the fierce barbarian conqueror, 
at the head of his ravaging hordes, announced to affrighted Europe that grass 
would never grow again where the hoofs of his war horse had left their mark. 
Scarcely less blighted will be the track of defeated and retreating southern 
armies, when no longer able to meet us in general engagements. But little will 
be left after their own wants are met, and that little will be destroyed. Our 
supply trains will have to move with our armies from the loyal Slates, thus 
augmenting the public expenditures at every step. It is safe, then, to conclude 
that the year that is to come, and on which we are just entering — the second 
year of the war— will swell the indebtedness of this Government to the alarm- 
ing sum of $2,000,000,000. This amount will have accrued about the time the 
toiling citizen is fairly called upon to commence the weary task of meeting its 
awful proportions by taxation. It is a task, sir, that no eye which now be- 
holds the sun will ever see completed. The child is not born, and will not be 
for more than a hundred years, who will escape the visits of the Federal tax- 
gatherer in the incessant labors of future generations to wear away by the 
steady droppings of a perpetual tax this mountain of debt. This is no high- 
wrought or extravagant statement, but the sad and melancholy truth, as ea^ih 
succeeding year of the approaching future will but too truly bear witness. 

It is said, however, here and elsewhere throughout the country, that we are 
a nation of inexhaustible resources, almost fabulous wealth, and that burdens 
which would cause_ other Governments to reel and stagger are as light as 
feathers to us. This is a pleasing tribute to our national vanity ; it sounds 
well in our self-complacent ears. We have been so long exalted "in happiness 
over all other people, so long blessed in every enjoyment above what God has 
ever vouchsafed to any other nation, that we are even now unwillino- or una- 
ble to realize the fact that the hand of affliction has at last fallen upo^n us with 
a force almost as cruel as that which visited Jerusalem when Titus was en- 
camped before her walls. It is true, however, that we abound in wealth. It 
IS true that our lap has been filled with treasure ; but things in this world exist 
principally by comparison. That which constituted immense wealth a little more 
than a year ago, in view of a public debt of less than fifty millions, diminlBhes 
3'apidly when brought to bear on a debt of forty times that amount. 

By the census report of 1860 we find that the assessed value of all the real and 
person al^property of the entire United States, both loyal and rebellious, is 
|12,006,'756,5S5. Thus it will be seen that our public debt is now equal to 
one-twelfth of all the taxable property of the Government, and that ia one 
year from now it will be equal to one-sixth of everything the people possess 
jNo cunning and studied speeches made to mislead and deceive can hide the na- 
ked fact that this is the people's debt, and they will have it to pay. Every sixth 
acre ot land, every sixth ox, every sixth borse, every sixtb sheep, every sixth 
hog, and every sixth dollar, under the financial mismanagement and fraud of 
the party now in power, will, in one year from to-day, be covered and swal- 
lowed up by the amount of the Government debt. It will be equal to an in- 
terest on every taxable substance in the land of si.xteen and two-thirds per 
cent. Every business man knows that in the private transactions of life such 
a rate of interest is the speedy prelude to individual ruin in him who nays it- 
and the nation on which such a weight is imposed is on the brink of over- 
whelming bankruptcy. In this estimate it will be seen that I have taken Ihe 
figures ot the census report as they were made when the unruflied calm of 
peace and prosperity gave to property its highest value. To what extent 
the ravages of war have depreciated this value it is impossible to calculate ■ 
but that the property of the people of the United States is to-day worth ntore 
than two-thirds of what if was one year ago, will not be pretended- and to 



the extent of that depreciation is the proportion which the public debt bears tc 
it increased. 

But again. By the census report from which I have just quoted we find 
that the population of the United States in the _year 1850 was a little more 
than thirty millions. Of this population about five millions are voters. A 
moment's calculation in the simplest rules of arithmetic shows tliat each indi- 
vidual voter of these five millions is in debt to-day $200 on account of liis'pro- 
portion of the national expenses, and that one year hence lie will be in debt 
|)-iOO on the same account. The liability of my own great State of Indiana, 
according to the rule of taxation which has been enacted against her by the 
present Congress, will be $100,000,000, of which enormous sum the people of 
the district whicli I have the honor to represent will stand charged with some- 
thing over twelve millions of dollars. 

Wliere, sir, in all the dreary history of profligate nations were eversuih bur- 
dens as these imposed on the shouHers of any people in so short a time ? The 
mourning children of Israel, captives in the brick'j-ards of Egypt, were scarcely 
more slaves to their Egyptian masters than the American people will be to the 
constant demands and exactions of the national debt. It will come upon them 
like the lean and hungry kine rising from the river of Pharoah's dream to de- 
vour the well-favored and fat-fleshed cattle of all the land. Tell me not of the 
blessings of a public debt. That ciy is simply the cheat and the falsehood by 
which men who have abused their authority seek to cover up the outrages 
which they have inflicted on confiding people. It is as old, too, as- crime in 
high places, or the principle of base cupidity in the heart of man. The Phari- 
sees of Jerusalem over their hoarded gains, the kings of Bab}"lon on their couches 
of gold, Alexander at his gorgeous banquets, the Sultan in the midst of his soft 
dalliances of expensive love, corrupt, etfeminate Roman senators in their villas 
of marble magnificence, the Bourbons of France surrounded by the splendors of 
the Tuilleries, the Stuarts of England, clinging to their maxims of kingcraft, 
lustful tyrants, debauched princes, and dishonest statesmen of all ages and ev- 
ery clime have all talked wisely and profoundly of the sweets and comforts 
■which flow to the people from that fountain of bitter waters — a great public 
debt. If they can convince the people that this monstrous heresy is right, then 
all check and restraint on extravagance and wasteful indulgence nt once are 
withdrawn, and avarice and corruption are left free to prey with unbridled li- 
cense on the substance of the nation. It is alarming, sir, that this fatal doc- 
trine is foutid creeping into the debates of the American Congress. Has~it come 
to this? Has this great nation, so famed for its wealth and pecuniary respon- 
sibility, been driven so soon to seek refuge in the mischievious principle that it 
is a national benefit to be sunk in indebtednessi It becomes the people, before 
it is too late, to arouse themselves against this baleful dogma of despotism, and 
prove to the world that they are woi-tliy of the freedom which they as yet pos- 
sess. Let them seek wisdom and warning on this vital subject in the teachings 
of that great founder of American- democracy, Thomas Jefferson. Discussing 
this question in 181-3, he said : 

" At the time we were fuailinc; our national debt, we heard much about 'public debt being 
a publie blessing;' that the slock representing it wiis a creation of active cai>ilal for the ali- 
ment of commerce, manufactures, and agriculture. This paradox was well adapted to the 
minds of believers in dreams, and the sails of that size entered bonajide into it.'' 

" We are warranted, then, in aflirming that this |)arody on the principle of the public debt, 
being a public blessing and its muiaiion into the blessing of private instead of public debts, 
is aa ridiculous as th« original princii)le itself. ' 

And again, in a letter to Albert Gallatin, this profound statesman and politi- 
cal philosopher says : 

" But if the debt should once more be swelled to a forniidab'e size, its entire dii»cliarge will 
be despaired of, and we shall be committed to the English career of debt, corruplion, rotten- 
ness, closing with revolution. The discharge of the <i«bt, therefore, is vital to llie destinies 
of eur Uoverauionl, aud it bangs ou Mr. Madiauuuad yourself alone." 

But, sir, I am well aware that I will be met here b}' the familiar cry that 
these terrible expenditures are necessary to maintain the existence of the Gov- 
oi'iiment and to carry ou the war in which we are engaged. To this assertiou 
I relui'ii » plain and nxplitit denial. From whatever quarter it comes, whether 



5^<f 



from high places or low places, it is not true. The public debt up to this hour, 
and to the extent of its fearful proportions, has not been the work of a national 
necessity-, nor the creation of honest hands. The Mexican war, though a for- 
eign and distant one, in which we paid the soldier substantially the same that 
we paj' him now, cost this Government, under the wise and honest adminis- 
tration of James K. Polk, in proportion to the numbers engaged — man for man 
— but little more than one fourth the amount now being expended on a war 
waged at our very door steps. Of course, I do not deny that heavy expenses 
have been properly inc\U"red ; but that fraud and crime in their darkest hues 
have swollen to an overwhelming amount the pecuniary liabilities of the peo- 
ple, I stand ready to prove. I shall ask no man to decide without the evidence 
to sustain so serious a charge. I make it, sir, with no plaesure. I delight not 
in. such Uiings. I love to speak kindly of my fellow-man. I would rather praise 
than censures Before my great Judge I can say that there is nothing in my 
heart which desires to drag down or wound any human being in the wide 
world. I would rather lift men up, if in my power, .than abase them. I love, 
too, their approbation. But when these wishes and desires of my heart stand 
ii} the way of my public duty, they must all be suppressed. The duty, howe- 
ver ungracious and unpleasant, must be performed ; and in the case now under 
consideration it seems, to mj- mind, that righteous justice demands the task be- 
fore me. The authors of a grinding extortion from the weary hands of honest 
labor are enemies to the human race, and should be so treated. 

Sir, asearly as last July, when this Congress first met in extraordinary ses- 
sion, the taint of corruption was perceived in the atmosphere of the capital, 
and a committee, since so celebrated, was raised to investigate and to expose. 
The result of a portion of the labors of that committee is before the country 
in the shape of a volume of over eleven hundred pages. The majority of that 
committee are friends to the party now in power, and the evidence which they 
have furnished is entitled to full credit. Would that a vx)lume of it could b« 
placed in the hands of every tax- paying voter of the country ! Its dark laby- 
rinths of proven guilt ought to be explored by every intelligent mind. By the 
solemn testimony of this committee, no branch of business connected with the 
militar}' and naval affairs of this Government seems to have escaped the hun- 
gry grasp of unlawful avarice and peculation. From the smallest article of 
food which enters into the soldier's ration, to the purchase of cattle for an entire 
army ; from the blanket on which the tired soldier sleeps at night to the vast 
fortifications fur the defence of a city ; from the pistol at the soldier's belt to 
the cannon at whose breech he stands in the day of battle: from the meanest 
transport sloop to the' mightiest nuin-of-war afloat, everywhere and on every- 
thing we find the impress of favoritism and of fraud. The report of this com- 
mittee is before me, and I submit a few extracts in proof of my statement. — 
Speaking of contracts for cattle made by the War Department during its man- 
agement by Mr. Cameron, the committee say : 

" "We have here not only evidence of gross mismanagement, a total I'isregard of the inter- 
ests of the Government, and a total recklessness in the expenditure ol the funds of the Gov^ 
ernment, but there is every reason to believe that there was collusion ujiiiu the part of the em- 
ployes of the Government to assist in robbing the Treasury, for, when a conscientious officer 
refused to pass cattle not in accordance with the contract, he was in eflect superseded by one 
who had no conscientious scruples in the matter, and cattle that were rejected by his prede- 
cessor were at once accepted. 

" With such a state of things existing, if officers of the Government who should be imbued 
with patriotism and integrity enough to have a care of the means of the Treasury ;ire ready lo 
assist speculating contractors to extort upon and defraud the Government, where is this sys- 
tem of peculation to end, and how soon may not the finances of the Government be reduced 
to a woeful bankruptcy ?" 

Again, on the same subject: 

" In this matter there is much evidence of grogs mismanagement and culpable carelessness 
in making contracts, together with a reckless improvidence of the means of the Government. 
Evidence" exists of large contracts for cattle having been made without any advertisement 
for bids, or any effort being matle by the agents of the Government to satisfy themselves 
whether the prices to be paid were exhorbitant, or even extortionate." 

Speaking of the employment of Alexandei- Cummings by Mr. Cameron, then 



Secretary of War, to fill an important contract by "which the Government has 
lost large sums of money, the committee say : 

" Mr. Commings had no general acquaintance- with business in New Yorlc. He had been 
a newspaper editor in Pennsylvania for twelve years, and had been in New York as the pub- 
lislier of another paper for some eighteen months. He was the intimate personal and political 
friend of the Secretary of War, 'and acquinted with the interal arrangements and connections 
of the railroads of Pennsylvania,' over wliich supplies are to be shipped, and he is invested 
with the control of $2,000,000 to purchase equipments for our army, and charter vessels for 
transporting troops and supplies. lie takes no oath, and gives no bond." * * * 

■'Such a system of public policy must lead inevitably to personal favoritism at the public 
expense*, the corruption of the public morals, and a ruinous profligacy in the expenditure of 
the public treasure, organizing an army of sappers and miners whose covert assaults on the 
nation would scarcely be less efifective than the open assaults of its traitorous enemies." 

Again, on this subject: 

"Can the Secretary ofWar pretend that the national peril and the necessity for immediate 
action justified these irresponsible expenditures of the public money with no settlement for 
four months afterwards, even i,f there had been no responsible and experienced public oiScers 
, in New York to perform the duties?' 

On the subject of buying arms, as conducted by the late Secretary of War, 
the committee State a loss of over ninety thousand dollars to the Government 
in one transaction, and say : 

" No Govermennt that ever has existed can sustain itself with such improvidence in the 
management of its affairs.'' 

In regard to the purchase of horses and wagons for the public service the 
committee sum up as follows: 

" It appears from all the evidence which is deta.iled in the record of evidence accompanying 
this report, that tlie parties to these discreditable transactions had a perfect understanding 
with each other, and engaged in a system of corrupt pecuniary gains by means of re(iui?itions 
and receipts signed in blank, and false invoices, at a time when the over-taxed finances of the 
Government and the confidence of a generous and patriotic people demanded the most rigid 
integrity." 

Sir, in view of this dark record of atrocious guilt, it is no wonder that the 
chairman of that comtnittee, [Mr. Van W^ck,] in his speech of February 7, 
on this floor, should exclaim : 

" The mania for stealing seems to have run through all the relations of Government. Al- 
most from the general to the drummer boy, from those nearest the throne of power to the 
merest tide-waiter. Nearly every man who deals with the Government seems to fee! or desire 
that it would not long survive, ami each had a common right to plunder while it lived.'' 

Again, the chairman saj's: 

"While it is nojustification, the example has been set in the very Departments of the Gov- 
ernment. As a general thing noae but favorites gain access there, and none other can obtain 
contracts wliicli bear enormous profits." "The Department which has allowed conspiracies 
after hicMing h.-is lieen closed to defraud the Government of the lowest bid, and by allowing 
the guilty to reap the fruits of their crime, has ilseUbeaonm jxcfticeps eriininin." 

And well might the able and fearless member of the committee from Massa- 
chusetts, [Mr. Dawes,] ia view of these revelations, also assert, as he did before 
the House and the country, that " startling facts have come to the notice of the 
committee, and to the notice of the whole country, touching the mode and 
manner of the expenditure of the public money ;" that, "in the tirst j-ear of a 
Republican Administration, which came into power upon professions of reform 
and retrenchment, there is indubitable evidence abroad in the land that some- 
body has plundered the public Treasury well nitjh in tliat single j'eav ns much 
as the entire current yearly expenses of the Government during the Adminis- 
tration which the people hurled from power because of its corruption." And 
further that those heavy measures of taxation which have been brought for- 
ward by tiie Connuittee of Ways and Means would " fall like a deail pall upon 
the public, unless before them goes tJiis assurance, that these vast and extreme 
measures instituted to resuscitate and revive and replenish the Treasury, are 
not merely for m-eans to fill other and longer, as well as the- already gorged 
pockets of public plunderers." 

But, sir, pas.sing on from the evidence of fraud and corruption in the manage- 
ment of our public affairs, as furnished by the proceedings of this House, I pro- 
ceed to other fields. The result of the labors of this committee are before the 



^^ 



country, and I can do no more in my brief hour than to extract a few conclusive 
sentences. Bat investigation of this kind has not been confined alone to this 
body. The other branch of Congress has had the subject of official deliijquency 
also forced upon their attention. I hold in my hand a report of the iSenate 
Committee on Naval Affairs, relating to one single transaction in which the 
Government sufl'ercd a loss of $70, QUO. I read from its concluding portions: 

"It 18 said to be necessary, not only that justice should be done, but that the public- should be 
satisfied that it is done ; aid in this view your committee reptret tliat in the city of New York, a 
man could not be found to transact this business for the Navy Department, out of the family con- 
nection oftheSecretary, for however pure and honest his purpose may have been in the selection 
it cannot fail to give rise to suspicions tbat other motives than a single purpose to sul>serve the 
public interests may possibly have inaueneed the choice that wasmade. The time, too, at 
which this arrangement w<\s made by which such a vast and disproportionate amount of the 
p"ublic money was paid for so inconsiderable a service, was peculiarly unfortunate. The coun- 
try was engaged in a war in which its very existence was at slake. The nation had been 
aroused, and was contributing men and money without stint to defend the national lilC, vin- 
dicate the national honor, and restore the rightful supremacy of the Constitution and the laws. 
The energies and the industry of the country were to be taxed as they never had been before, 
and the pressing necessities of the Government had compelled it to resort to new and untried 
sources of revenue. The hut of poverty and the splendid mansions of wealth were alike 
called upon to aid in bearing the burden which rebellion and civil war had thrown upon the 
nation All this was borne, and would have been borne cheerfully, if the tax-payers had 
seen or been convinced that their money was to be faithfully and economically applied to the 
purposes f>r which it was raised. But when they see immense sums lavished upon personal 
or political favorites for small and inconsiderable scj-vices, eonfldence in the Goverumentis 
impaired, public credit is paralyzed, and the very existence of the nation is imperiled." 

And in commenting on this alarming state of corruption in the Navj? Depart- 
ment, a very distinguished Senator (Mr. Hale) used the following strong lan- 
guage : 

" When the country was taxing itself as it never had before, when it was bleeding at every 
pore, when new and untried sources of revenue were resorted to, when you were taxing the 
necessaries of the humblest inhabitant of your land, and when the land was straining itself 
and all its citizens, and they were sending their young men to the field and giving their money 
to the Treasury — at tiiat time and in that hour when it seemed as if the very existence of the 
nation stood in the scale, doubtful. which way it *vas to turn, George D. Morgan, a merchant 
of New York, a brother- in-law of the Secretary of the Navy, was receiving from the hard 
«arnings of this hard taxed people a compensation equal to about twelve thousand dollars a 
month." 

He further saj's : 

" I regret to see what has been stated in several of the papers, not tbat tJiey believed this 
was an honest tran-action, not that it was a fair one, not that it was one that deserved to re- 
ceive the approbation and the sanction of the Government; but the excuse is, that it is not 
»half 80 bad as what has been done in other cases ; and I have no doubt tbat that is true. I have 
nodoubtthat if some of the investigating committees go on they will find tliat there have been 
transactions compiired with which $70,000 was a small sum, and that it will be considered un- 
gracious to call up one of these petty offenders that has only taken $70,000 and deal with him 
when there are others going off staggering under the load of hup.dre<ls of thousands. 

"You are about to call upon this people for large taxes ; you are atiout to call on them for 
a large loan, and a large tax to pay the interest on that loan, to maintain the public faith and 
to enable your armies to prosecute this war successfully. I ask you. Senators, with what face 
you can go home to your constituents v.'hen they see this thing which they all know and un- 
derstand; whcQ they see that $70,000 have been [)aid for the services of one man for less than 
six mouths at a time of such distress as this, and appeal to your own people and ask them to 
come forward and put tlieir hands into their pockets and shoulders to the wheel and forward 
this car? Sir, I do not know what other men may do; I cannot; I dare not. I sliould expect 
the finger of scorn from the hut of poverty to point me out as reckless and faithless for being 
here a member of the Senate, in this lioiir of our country's peril, if I had failed to rebuke pro- 
fligacy in the expenditure of the public money, let it be when and where.it may.'' 

Again, this Senator ex«laims, from bis extensive knowledge of th.e manage- 
ment of our affairs: 

"I do not know but I may over estimate, entirely over estimate, the character of this trans- 
action ; but I tell you, sir, I believe, and I declare it upon my responsibility as a Senator of 
the United States, that the liberties of this country are in greatrr danger to-ilay from the cor- 
ruptions and from the profl^igacy j)racticed in the various Departments of this Government 
than it is from the open enemy in the field." 

Sir, I might here pause and dwell upon this terrible accusation, coming from 
a quarter so high and so fully entitled to credit. A hostile army has been for 
a year in sight of this Capitol. Treason has usurped by far the largest portion 
of the territory of tlie United States; our rivers have been turned to blood ; 



8 

our mountains have become Golgothas; our valleys are the burial places of our 
firstborn, slain in battle; the wail of mothers, wives, and daughters goes up 
from one ocean to the other, as the voice of Rachel weeping for hei- children 
and 'refusing to be comforted because they are not; the very sun above our 
heads seems vailed in mourning over the funeral sorrows of this once happy 
people; and yet, in the midst of these thickening signs of national calamity, it 
is announced by a Senator who helped to place this Administration in power, 
and emphasized by an appeal to his senatorial honor, that a more deadly evil 
than them all combined is now assaulting the existence of the Government — 
"that the liberties of this country are in greater danger to day from the cor- 
ruptions and from the profligacy practiced in the various departments of this 
Government than it is fiom the open enemy in the field." Sir, I call upon the 
people, of all ranks and conditions in life, of every party, of every creed, and 
of every faith, to give ear to this warning, and to defend themselves at the 
great tribunal of the ballot-box against wrongs so wicked, oppression so inhu- 
man, crimes so revolting. I abhoi- treason ; my soul has never sympathized 
with the designs of a traitor to the Constitution of my country ; I would stand 
here and consume all my time in denunciation of the fatal doctrine of secession 
and all its deploi-able consequences, if any result would thus be accomplished; 
but when I find proven offeni7es in our own midst of sufRcient enormity to pros- 
trate any nation that ever had a place on the pages of history, if not speedily 
cheeked, I see not why I should pass them by, in order to discuss a subject on 
which there is no diversity of opinion. 

I have not, however, completed my proof of the charge which I make of gen- 
eral and wide-spread fraud in the management of the financial concerns of the 
Government. There is one dark chapter mcire to which I wish to call the at- 
tention of the House and the country. I allude to the melancholy history of 
the military department of the West, as writlen by the commiitee on war 
claims, at the city of St. Louis. Would to God that this Republic could have 
been spared this additional and most bitter cup of shame! The report of this 
committee is so extraordinary, so utterly amazing in its monstrous revelations 
of lawlessness and fierce, devouring cupidity, that the mind almost refuses a 
belief in its statements. I venture to assert that it is without a parallel in the 
recorded transactions of any nation on the face of the civilized earth. But 
painful and humiliating as the facts therein contained are to every man who 
loves the purity of our national name, yet the character of the gentlemen who 
compose that committee, eminent alike for their ability, their patriotism, and 
their integrity, together with the cle;vr and unquestioned evidence on which 
they base their report-, rivet the belief in every candid mind that the simple 
truth has been conscientiously told. There is no escape from this damning ex- 
posure. Its light is as scorching, withering as the hot blasts of the simoon of 
the desert. It will not do for gentlemen on the opposite side of the Chamber 
to attempt by studied silence to ignore its existence. It is not a document to 
be treated in that waj-. It emanates from a source of the highest respousi- 
bilit}'. It is the work of honest, faithful labor. No malice from personal 
griefs or political rivalry can be charged against it. Let us see, then, how so 
fair, so able a report deals with the idol to which. a great party has linked its 
sinking fortunes. I can quote but enough to show the general license and cor- 
ruption which prevailed. My time forbids more than this. 

In -lul}', 1861, General Fremont, surrounded by his personal and political fa- 
vorites, gathering from the Atlantic seaboard and the coast of the Pacific, hke 
vultures to their prey, assumed the command of the western de])artment, with 
the rank of major general, and established his headquarters at the city of St. 
Louis. He at once proceeded to inaugurate a system in the purchase of military 
supplies, of which the conmiittee speak as follows: 

" This systum, ulike fatul to the pecuniary interests of the Sovemment and the morality of 
the scrviei', was not conflniil to tciil-i, hut cxIcmkU'iI io every portion of tlie flcld of army sup- 
plies wliicU wus siifficii-iitly friiitl'ul toattiiut the avaric- of lliis olus.s of nion. Honest mo- 
Obabics who had tents for side, inircliiiiits wlio had Mipplies wliioli the Government Deeded, 
and men from tlie coiuitry olTerin<; horses ami mules were turned from tlie ♦luarteimaster's 
office Yvitlioul a conferenei', aiul driven down into tlie meshes of the 'middle men,' to become. 
In common willi the Goveriuuent, a prey to tiieir rapacity." 

StaVting with such a system, each day's practice un4er it was a new page of 



^9 



corruption. Whether in fortifying St. Louis, at a dead logs to the Government 
of $250,000, or in the infinite foUj' of building a worthless pontoon bridge at 
Padueah, at another loss of $125,000 ; whether in ordering the construction of 
railroad cars, at a loss of $75,000, or in the purchase of forage, by which 
$100,000 was plundered from the people; whether in the purchase of arms, of 
clothing, the building of boats, the purchase of horses, mules, and their equip- 
ments, the rent of houses, of barracks, of steamboats, the use of railroads and 
the telegraph lines, in all, in everything, everywhere, all pervading and omni- 
present fraud of the boldest and most audacious character is discovered and 
dragged to light by, the labors of this committee. It is not, sir, poor, pitiful, 
sneaking fraud, but fi'aud of gigantic dimensions, and of a daring satanie aspect. 
It is fraud such as a corrupt and aspiring consul of Rome might commit in some 
distant and opulent province, when he cast his ambitious and longing gaze 
upon the imperial purple. It is fraud such as has marked the career in all ages 
of those who entertained the usurper's designs against the liberties of their 
country.. That I do not state this case too stronglj', let the following extracts 
from the report before me bear witness: 

"The most stupendous contracts, involving an almost unprecedented waste of the publi« 
money, were given out by him [General Fremont] in person to favorites, over the heads of the 
honest and competent officers appointed by law. It seemed to be his pmpose to present him- 
self as the embodiment of political and military power, and to show alike by liis words and 
his conduct how little he depended upon the Government of his country, and how utterly he 
disregarded its laws, its regulations, audits policy. Of course such an example could not be 
otherwise than contagious." The whole frame-work of the political and military systems, as 
organized by law, was unbraced, and disorder and criminal insubordination everywhere pre- 
vailed. There could be no obedience when the general of the dejiartment openly taught and 
practiced resistance to the laws as a right, if not a duty. There could be no economy where 
the general exposed himself continually to imjiutatioiis of laboring in his great office to feed 
the greed of his fellowers for gain, lie oecujiied, with his family and several members of his 
staff, a marble palace, and lived, amid ils luxurious furniture and glittering wares, at a stip 
ulated expense of $6,000 per annum to the Government, at a time when the homes of millions 
of our people were darkened by the horrors of civil war. Could it be expected that his su- 
bordinates would display any special sympathy with our national suS'erings, or any marked 
solicitude to guard the public Treasury from plunder? Instead of going to ('airo, as he could 
have done for a few dollars on one of the vessels transporting the troojis which accompanied 
him, he chartered a magnificent steamer, at a cost of $1,600 to the Government, to convey 
himself and cortege alone. This steamer was anchored out in the stream instead of lying at 
the wharf as all others did and do, and when the general drove in his carriage and four to the 
water's edge, yet another steamer, at still further cost to the Government, as we learn from a 
claim presented for it, was employed to put himself and suite on board. A f<ireign prince or 
potentate, in a season of national mmnning, might thus live and thus enter his pleasure yacht 
or his barge of state, but insensibility amid the calamities of civil war, and wastefulness, when 
the publicdebt is being increased al the rate of from one to two millions daily, when exhibited 
by a general of the American Army, is a spectacle from which the patriot may well turn away 
in grief and humiliation." 

Sir, there was but one thimg more needed to complete this wretched picture 
of public debauchery and crime,, and that, unhappily, was furnished. The fol- 
lowing extract from the report of the coujmittee shows that Major General 
John C. Fremont conspired to overthrow the Constitution of his country, and 
trample under foot the liberties of his Government: 

"The statements of these witnesses — officers of unimpeachable integrity and intelligence — 
will, we are sure, be heard by the Government with equal astonishment and sorrow. Gene- 
ral Fremont proclaims, on assuming his command, thit ' there were nolonger any civil rights; 
that there was no Government except that outside of the Constitution, v^^lich had been sus- 
pended ; that it was his determination to administer his department without reference to law 
or regulations ; that the people of the United States were in the field, and tliat he was at their 
head, and that he meant to carry out such measures as they, the peojile. expected him to carry 
out, "without regard to tlie red tape '' of the Washington people'- that is, the President and 
Congress. It is singular how perfectly these sentiments harmonize with those held by the 
usurpers who in Ihis'and other ages ot the world have sought and established absolute power 
upon the ruins of public liberty. " Some of these usurpers, taking yet higher ground than that 
assumed in the interview with Colonel Andrews, have claimed lor themselves a mission to 
' carry out ' the will of God, but none of them have sunk their pretensions below a special 
mission to ' carry out ' the will of the peoijle. Csesar, when he stood upon the banks of the 
Eubicon and waved to his veterans to advance, did not make a bolder declaration against 
his counlry than this. The words, so earnestly and so often spoken, announced a revolution 
conceived, but which, happily, most happily for the country, the parent had not the strength 
to bring forth. No man has lived in the tide of times wise and pure enough to be intrusted 
■with such a power as is here claimed. Military chieftains who cut 'red tape ' always do it 
with their swords, and history proves that the throat of their counlry sutlers quite as much 
as the ' tape ' in the operation. As free institutions have their foundations in law, and in the 
obedience of the people and their representatives, civil and military, to ii, this expression of 



10 

a purpose to east aside all political and constitutional restraints, made in the halls of legigla- 
tion even, would alarm, but when made in the field by a chieftain, at the head of a great 
army, it cliills and awes the patriot's heart by its parricidal spirit. It reveals an unscrupulous 
ambition, which awaits but the prestige and power of victory to sweep the Government Itself, 
as a cobweb, from its ]>ath. 

"This sad page in the history of the late commander of this department, gathers a deep 
shadow from tlie circumstanets under which these declarations were made General Fremont 
had a few weeks before talccH and subscribed the following military oath : ' I, Jolin C. Fre- 
mont, do solemnly swear tbat I will bear true faith and allegiance to the United States, and 
that I will serve t'hem honestly and faithfully against their enemies or opposers whomsoever; 
and that I will observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States, and the orclera 
of the officers over me, according to the rules and articles of war.' He thus in sight of God and 
his country, had plighted faith with his Government that he would bear to it ' true allegiance,' 
and he stood pledged by the most solemn of human sanctions to siTpport th^ C<mstitution 
which, when ' the people are in the field,' places at ' their head ' the President of th'' United 
States, and not any generel holding a commission under him. With a confiding fondness he 
had been summoned from the obsc'urity of private life, and, preferred above the veterans and 
a whole army of patriots, he was made a major general Scarcely has he gir.ied on his 
sword, to v/hose honor the best interests of the natfon had been committed, when he say-i to 
his subordinates and followers that he draws it, not in the, name of law or of the GovernmeiR, 
but in defiance of both, to enforce such measures as, in his judgment, 'the peoplii expected 
him to carry out.' These words were spoken, as it were, in the very sick chamber ( f the 
Republic,, and had the tone of the undertaker while the iiatient was yet strugirling for life. 
They were uttered against the Government of a country, not then tranquil and strong and able 
to battle with all assailants, but of a country distracted and humbled, and bleeding under the 
stabs of traitors. They came from no flush of excitement springing from a triumi)h of arms, 
but were the solemn and oft-repeated enunciations of a general just entering ,th.- field of hia 
future operations, and surveying for the first time the strength of his gathering army. They 
were addressed to officers of liigh rank in the service, and were intended to impress them 
with obedience to his revolutionary programme. General Fremont already held the sword, 
and it was most important for his purposes that Colonel Andrews, the head of the pay de- 
partment here, and Major Johnson, a paymaster under him, should not interfere with his 
fcee use of the national purse.'' 

Sir, in what age do we live? Is this the age of republican simplicity and 
integrity, or are we transported to the days of fraudulent usurpers, to the hh- 
halloweVl scenes of the Roman Cffisars? Are we in republican America, or 
have we, by some magic process, been suddenly drojiped down in the midst of 
oriental lux'ury and kingly indulgence? Has the Administration of this Gov- 
ernment sought for a model among the princij^les of Washing. ou and Jefferson, 
or from the examples of Tiberius, Caligula, and Domitian ? The great philo- 
sophic poet says that — ■> 
" Corruption wins not more than honesty.'' 

But is that true in these latter days ? I have shown that, by the delibarate 
finding of a committee raised under the authority of this House, and by the 
action of this House itself, the late Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, is de- 
clared guilty, in this awful crisis, of plundering, and witli criminal knowledge 
permitting to l)e plundered, the resources of the people, the Tieasury of his 
country. With that b/aird upon him, he steps from one exalted station to 
another, and goes as our accredited minister to the court of the greatest and 
most friendly I'owr to us on the continent of Europe. The conclusions which 
the Russian Emperor may draw in regard to the American sense of public 
morality will not, perhaps, advance us much in his estimation. Let Mr. Cam- 
eron present the following resolution, adopted so recently by this House, as a 
part of his credentials, and our degradation in that (quarter of the world will 
be complete : 

licsolved, Tliat Simon Cameron, late Secretary of War, by investing Alexander Cummlnga 
with the control of large sums of the pul>lic money, and authority to purehasL- niililary sup- 
plies without restriction, without rccpiiring from him any guarantee for the faithful perform- 
ance of his duties, when the services of competent public officers were available, and by in- 
volving the Government in a vast number of contracts with i)ersons not legitimately engaged 
In the business pertiiining to the subject-matter of such contracts, e8i)ecially in the purchase 
of arras for futun-! delivery, has adopted a ])olicy highly injurious to the public service, and 
deserves the cetisure of this llouse. 

I have shown that, bj' the deliberate finding of a regular committee of the 
Senate, the present Secretary of the Nav}', Gideon Welles, in connection with 
his brother inlaw, George D Morgan, has unlawfully extorted from tlie tax- 
payers of the Government $70,00U of their money. With neither justification 
nor rcstilulion on his part, he yet retains his seat at the board of the Cabinet 



^/ 



11 

coiincil, wears fine linen, and fares sumptuously every day, while the wives and 
children of soldiers have died in the great philanthropic cities of the North for 
the want of bread. 

I have shown that a commission of most eminent gentlemen appointed by the 
President himself have proven, eonohisively proven, that the blighting touch, 
of John C. Fremont during his hundred days in Missouri palsied public credit, 
defrauded the people of millions, filled the bloated purses of his favorites by 
fraud, demoralized the public service in every branch, and sought to destroy 
the Constitution itself The exhausted soldier is put to death for yielding to 
iiTesistible slumber at his post, the victim of pinching poverty is sent to the 
penitentiary for stealing provision for his wife and children ; but this exalted 
criminal finds appi'oval for his conduct, is surrounded by flatterers, is restored 
to the field, and sits in the saddle of command and of power. Sir, Cicero, 
brought the haughty Verres to trial and to condemnation for his fraudulent 
practices in the Sicilian province; and Burke enriched the English language 
by his tl^iuneiatious of the extortionate measures imposed by Warren Hast- 
ings on uie people of the East Indies ; but in the midst of fraud aiid robbery 
in the very highest departments of this Government we have as yet seen no 
ofiicial delinquent brought to answer the law for the plunder of the publie 
Treasury, but rather we have seen the perpetrators of these wrongs receiving 
still greater marks of confidence and of favor, and niounting to still loftier 
lieights of honor. 

But, Mr. Speaker, having established by the highest proof, the charge which 
I make of fraud in the management of our pecuniary afi'airs by which our 
public debt has been so fearfully increased, I shall now proceed to the brief 
consideration of a few other points ju-operly in this connection, and which I 
conceive to be of publ'ic interest. 

We seek to take refuge, sir, from the enormous figures of our national in- 
debtedness whenever they are brought to our attention, in the fact that we can 
defer its payment, and bequeath it as an inheritance to coming generations. 
Admitting that this unworthy thing may to some extent be done, yet let us 
see^for a few moments, what amount of money this Government will be com- 
pelred aninially to raise in order to prevent open and confessed bankruptcy 
before the world. I will content myself 'with a specific statement of the vari- 
ous items of current yearly expense which must be regularly met. Against the 
substantial correctness of this statement I challenge successful contradiction. 

The interest on the public debt, at a very low estimate, $100,000,000. 

The ordinary expenses of the Government, including appropriations for the 
increased magnitude of the Army and Navy after the war is over, will reach 
$150,000,000 at auother low estimate. I am especially warranted in fixing this 
amount in view of the declaration on this floor, by the chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Military Aft'airs, [Mr. Blair, of Missouri,] tiiat hereafter our peace 
establishment will consist of a standing army of a hundred thousand men. 

The pension list comes next. This Government must not fail to meet the re- 
quirements of civilization and of humanity. It must and will provide for the 
support of its maimed and wounded, and for the maintenance of the widows 
and orphans of those who have fallen on the field of battle, or been stricken 
down by disease while in the public service. It is of course diflicult to calcu- 
late the amount which will be required to meet this item of expense; but no 
well-informed person will pretend that it will be less than the sum of |100,- 
000,000. 

To the above must be added at least §.50,000,000 more as a margin for claims 
against tlie Govei'nment, contingent expenses, and unforeseen events during 
this convulsive and unsettled period of the world's history. 

We have thus an inevitable annual expenditure, without making any pro- 
vision whatever for the payment of the public debt itself, of the sum of §400,- 
000,000, This amount will make its demands on the resources of the peo[)le in 
each succeeding year, as regularly as the season come and go, and in a voice 
as imperative and inexorable as the cry of fate. You need not -avert your 
frightened gaze fiom the sore contemplation of this terrible fact. It is the lion 
in the pathwa}- of the future, but it must be met. Death itself is not more 
certain to all than is this monstrous annual burden on the shoulders of the 



12 

American people. And now, sir, bearing this fearful fact in mind, from which 
there is now no escape, the question necessarily arises with immense, over- 
whelming force, as to what system of finance shall he adopted to raise annually 
this monstrous sum of money. It is the vital question of the day, and para- 
mount to all others save civil liberty and republican government. 
• I live, Mr.'Speaker, in a land of corn, in a land where the fruits of the earth 
constitute the reward of labor. I live in a great valley, beside whose agricul- 
tuial wealth the famed valleys of the Euphrates and the Kile and the richest 
fields of Euiope sink into utter insignificance, and whose more than Egyptian 
granaries invite the markets of the civilized world. The plow, the harrow, 
the reaper, and the threshing machine are our implements of industi-y, and 
compose the coat of arms of our nobility. The soil is our fiuitful mother, and 
we are her children. We fill our cribs with grain, and stock our pastures with 
cattle, and with these we seek to purchase those other neeessai'y articles of life 
which are not made in our midst. These are our possessions, which we offer in 
barter and exchange with the trading mei'chants of the world who gk'e us the 
best returns. This we conceive to be our right, and that the Government in 
which we live should protect us in its enjoyment. 

But turn to the contemplation of another region of this country. You there 
behold the land of manufacturing machinery, and hear the soupd of the loom 
and the spindle. The people of the Xorth and East make fabrics of cloth, 
and manufacture all those articles which man needs and which do not grow. 
These constitute their wealth and their stock of merchandise for trade. The 
markets of the world are open to them, and of right ought to be. The West 
is an immense consumer of those articles which they have to sell. We are 
willing to buy of them of our own choice if we can buy theie as cheap as we 
can elsewhere. But I here aver that the unequal and unjust system of finance 
now adopted by the part}' in power gives to the vast manufacturing interest of 
this country tlae arbitrary power to fix its own exoibitant prices, and the 
laboring agriculturist is compelled to pay them. To this no people can submit. 
Against this outrage the people of the West will cry out. You have fastened 
upon this countiy the most odious sj'stem of tariff on imported goods that oyer 
paraljzed the energies of a nation or oppressed its agi-icultural citizens. You 
say by that tariff that the manufacturing institutions of this country shall not 
be brought in competition with those of other parts of the wurld. You say 
that our ports shall be closed to foreign ti'aders for fear they will undersell the 
manufacturer of New England or the ironmonger of Pennsylvania. You re- 
quire, of the European merchant a dutj' which he cannot pay, and thus you 
banish him fiom our commercial intercourse. You say to the western farmer, 
to agriculturists everywhere, that there shall be but one market in which they 
may buy. You drive them to the counters and founderies of men whuni you 
protect in a monopoly of the sales wliicdi they make. You do all this for the 
sole and avowed leasoii that goods from abroad can be sold heie cheaper than 
they can be made and sold by our own citizens, and that a protection must be 
given to high prices. Every school boy in political science knows who pays 
this increase of price. Keed I, at this period of American history, discuss the 
operations of a iiigh protective tariff ? Need I stop to show its folly and its 
injustice? No, sir. It is one of the settled questions of governmental policy. 
Twenty years ago it was fairly tried, and the American people passed an intel- 
ligent verdict of condemnation against it. It was full}- heard by greater advo- 
cates than it has today, and repudiated as an unfair and ruinous system. If 
any question was ever, in the historj- of this Government, distinctly tried be- 
fore a tribun.il of the people and condemned, it was the question of a protec- 
tive tariff. Tiie couuti-y. prospered by its repudiation, and the laborer bought 
where his money would buy most. I^ut this issue has again risen, and in a 
shape more ofl'ensive and injurious to tlie true interests of the country than ever 
before. Tiie present tariff is one which no party in the past would have sanc- 
tioned. Il would liave alarmed the old Wliig party as much as any other by 
its stringent and prohibitory features. It goes far'beyond wliat was deemed 
wise or piudent bj' tlie strongest protectionists of former high tariff periods. 
And now allow me to stale some of its specific practical operations as a part of 
the financial jiolic}' of the present hour. 



^f 



13 ■ 

It forces the laboring man, the consumer, the farming classes generally, to 
pay for manufactured articles, which embrace a large portion of the necessities 
of life, an increased price over tlieir proper value, and over that for which they 
can elsewhere be bought, of from forty to one hundred per cent. Thus a tax 
of most fearful rate is levied on one bi'anch of iinlustry, not to support the 
Government, but to contribute as a gratuitous donation to a privileged and 
favored business. That is the first extortionate species of taxation whicli 
meets us in the examination of ihis subject. It is one wliich at any time would 
fall with oppressive cruelt}' on a large majority of the loyal people of the 
country; but, at a time like this, when the government itself is claiming 
almost the entire substance of the land for its maintenance, no language can be 
found sufficiently strong with v/hich .to characterize the enormity of such a 
policy. 

In Uie next place, the present tariff robs the Government of a much-needed 
revenue by keeping imported goods from our shores. Under its operations 
during the past year, according to a statement made a few weeks since in the 
British Earliament by the Chancellor of the English Exchequer, our importa- 
tions from Great Britain alone have fallen off to the amount of $8.3,000,000. 
The report on the finances of our own Government for the year ending June 
30, 1861, shows a loss in our receipts arising from customs during the first three 
months after this tariff went into operation of over ten millions of dollars as 
compared with the receipts during a similar period a year previous. Under 
the tariff of lS-t6, a revenue to support the Government was tought b}' liberal 
terms of trade with foreign nations, and richly obtained. The rule is now re^ 
versed, and for the unworthy purpose of protecting a class of business which 
ought to sustain itself or be abandoned, this great fountain of pecuniary sup- 
port to 'the nation is dried up. It no longer flows into the Treasury, and the 
mone}' which is thus diverted from the public to private and individual benefit 
has to be replaced under this Administration by direct and specific taxes on the 
people. Thus taxation grows and augments its alarming proportions in order 
that the interests of a favored few may be cherished and promoted. 

But the manner in which this taxation is to be levied, and in which it is to • 
affect the different interests of the country exceeds all the preceding features 
of criminal outrage on those who live Ipy producing from the soil. By the 
provisions of the tax bill which recently passed this House a tax of three per 
cent. oA valorem is laid upon all articles of manufacture in the hands of the 
manufacturer. It is estimated tliat there will thus be raised $.50,000,000 of the 
annual income arising from taxation. This the manufacturing interest is to 
pay for the support of the Government, and the airs of patriotism which are 
assumed in consequence are eminently characteristic. But inasmucli as this 
manufacturing interest is guarded by a Morrill tariff* from all competition in 
selling, and strictly protected, in inci-easing its prices uf sale to its forced cus- 
tomers to an almost unlimited extent, will any oife, in his simplicity, pretend 
that the three per cent, wherewith it is taxed, the $50,000,000 which it has to 
pay, will not be charged up to the buyer when its goods are sold. The tariff 
and taxation are kindred measures, born of a common origin, and, like leashed 
hounds, hunt for their innocent prey coupled together. The tariff stands 
guard over the interests of the manufacturer, while taxation hunts for every 
other substance in the land on which to fasten its fangs. And if, for the sake 
of appearances, the manufacturing interest is meutio,ned in a tax bill, the tariff 
steps forward and enables its cherished friends to recover back every dollar 
which they are assessed by raising the price of the woolen clothes, the linens, 
the muslins, the calicoes, the plowshares, and the implements of husbandry, 
and the articles of daily necessity which the American Government forces its 
citizens to buy of its protected monopolists. This is the culmination, the 
climax of wrong. A Government which plunders one citizen to enrich another 
needs the strong, stern hand of reform on its helm. 

Though perfect equality should prevail in meeting the immense taxation 
which is coming like a mountain avalauche^upon this people, yet it will be 
born amid sorrow and weary pain ; but when it shall all fall virtually on a 
given class of citizens it will become an intolerable, suffocating nightmare of 
ruin and of death. I challenge the attention of the country that such is the 



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u 

worliing of tlie present sj'stera, wliieh it is pretended has been adopted for the 
support of the Government. Already we eee its effects. The s;reat manufac- 
turing corporations of the East are crowding their bloated pockets with rapid 
and gigantic gains. Their dividends of profits are swollen some thirty, some 
sixty, and some an hundred fold. This is no random statement, but is sus- 
tained by the statistics before me. It is a fact, too, of "Tirhich the whole country 
has taken cognizance. 

Sir, no sectional boundaries to my lore of country prompts these remarks. I 
call God to witness witli what devotion I love every sod and rock, and river, 
mountain, prairie, and forest of my naiive land. For its happines-? and glory 
it would be sweet and honorable to die. I reckon no section of it above ano- 
ther. It is all alike to me, all dear and hallowed by the principles of consti- 
tutional liberty. But I speak in the name of justice, which is everywhere 
present, in the name of fraternal and American equality, and I ask you, I im- 
plore you, to look at the condition of the western people. Their interests 
have been abandoned on this floor by more than half their Representatives, 
and thej' stand today bearing the hard brunt of tlie pitiless storm which has 
burst from the angry sky. They are shut out from all fair markets for their 
pi'oduce. Their natural channels of trade to the South are closed by the im- 
pious hand of war, and their avenues to the markets of the North are ob- 
structed by the avarice of railroads. It costs sixty cents to freight a bushel of 
corn from the Wabash river to New York, and leaves from seven to fourteen 
C€nt8 to tlie farmer who has caused it to grow and gathered it in, as the re- 
ward of his toil. For everything else he receives the same beggarly return. 
And yet who has lifted up his voice here in behalf of that great, that honest 
and oppressed people? Where is their representative in the Committee of 
Ways and Means, that great despotic committee which matures measures of 
tariff, of taxation, and of finance, and whose decrees on this floor are as un- 
alterable as the laws of the Medes and Persians? On that committee, which 
speaks the voice of fate for the weal or woe of the tax-payers of all the land, 
the great imperial domain of the West, from the feet of the Alleghany Moun- 
tiiins to the Pacific ocean, has had no member during this impoitant session. 
Blow after blow has fallen on her naked head, and now she stands exposed to 
tlie payment of four-fifths of all the burdens which this Government has to 
bear. I speak advisedlj'. She has been trarn]>led under foot. Her rights 
have been disregarded. She has been plundered for the benefit of others. 
And from here I call upon her to vindicate herself, to assert her e(|uality, to 
resist oppression, to scorn the tribute which ^he is called upon to pay to a 
branch of industrj' which God and nature never intended slie should support, 
to demand from her Government the same protection which others obtain, and 
toreckon witli her oppressors at thet) allot- box. As for me, I shall join in no such 
sj'Stem of injustice, inequali^ty, and wanton extortion against tl» people whose 
interests are confided to my care in this House. I shall resist it in all consti- 
tutional methods, and denounce it ever3'where ; and in doing so I shall perform 
what I conceive to be one of the highest duties of honest, fearless patriotism. 

I might here stop, Mr. Speaker, and rest this great subject with the American 
people. Tlie vast debt, tlie unparalleled fraud by which it has been accumn- 
iated, and the iniquitous mode of assessing taxes on the wealth and labor of the 
country, are all before them. But the political party now in the ascendancy 
in the executive and legislative departments of this Government have never 
considered any measuie of policy on any subject complete or perfect unless it 
embraced a connection, however unnatural, with the African race, unfortunately 
in large numbers on this oonlinent. These are strange days that hare con>« 
upon us. We liave all lived to see the abolition of slavery be>come a pecuniary 
question, and the abolition party become a direct tax upon the pockets of th« 
poople. Tlie Federal tax gatlierer will visit evei-y house in the land in the next 
six months for money to carry out its schemes. In the midst of a war mow 
expensive tlinn the worhl ever witnessed before; with an army and navy cost- 
ing us more tlian llie armies of England, France, Austria, and Russia combined; 
witli the hand of jdunder deep in tiie sacred vaults of the national Treasurj'; 
with tlie hungry «pirit of taxation, like the gaunt and insatiate specter of fam- 
ine, hunting for the smallest substances of a laborious people, out of which fc« 



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■wring an income ; with markets closed, prices depressed, bankruptcy casting 
its appalling shadow on the horizon of the future, and dismay gathering in the 
faces of the yeomen of the nation, this, sir, is the time chosen to startle us with 
a deliberate and most earnest proposal to purclinse with money ami set free the 
slave population of the South. The President of the United States and both 
branches of the American Congress have solemnly pledged this Government, 
in the face of its own citizens, and before the attentive gaze of the nations of 
the earth, to buy and liberate, if their owners will sell, the entire four millions 
of slaves which are held in the southern States of this Union. This is the 
» pledge, and it stands recorded by a vote of this House, by a vote of the Sen- 
ate, and by the approval of the President, who amazed the country in its 
zealoiis recommendation. It is now a part of the financial poli(.-y of the pres- 
ent Administration, made sfi by a full party expression. Nor has it been bai*- 
ren of fiuits even thus early. The slaves of the District of Columbia have 
already been bouarht by a forced and unconstitutional sale, and over one million 
of dollars appropriated from the earnings of the people to pay for them. This 
act of fanaticism fixes the meaning which the authors of this pledge attach to 
the phrase '■ pecuniary aid." It has received a severely practical illustration, 
and the doubting mind is set at rest. But if anything further was needed to 
convince the tax payer of the designs of abolitionism, 1 have it before me. I 
hold in my hand a pamphlet of twelve pages, written by Daniel R. Good\oe, 
an officeholder under this Administration, evidently a man of ability, but un- 
fortunately led astray by a spurious philosophy and a mistaken philanthropy 
on the subject of slavery. He warmly and ably espouses the policy of the 
President, and makes the following statement of the cost of that policy to the 
American people: 

" I have shown what the compensation to the border States would be at two different ratee 
of payment per capita for the si aves, and it will h.ivo been seen that I liave favored the more 
liberal scale. I now proceed to show what would be the cost of redeeming the whole slave 
population of the Union at the same rates. 

" By the census of last year there were 3,S.')2,S01 slaves in the United States and Territories. 
I have already shown that 45-l,4it, which belonged to the border States, would be worth, al 
$250 each, .$1 lo,610.250, and at $300 each, $1.36,.S32,.S00. There remains to be disposed of, there- 
rore, 8,4i*8,.9(;o slaves embraced in the country subject to the rebels, but including, of course, 
large numbers belonging to friends of the Union, who have been constrained into obedi- 
ence to the rt-bel autliorities against their wills. At the lowest estimated average value of 
f25'V these slaves of the rebels would be worth $874,590,000, and adding the compensation to 
tlie border States, on the same terms, the aggregate cost to the Government would be 
$988,200,250. At the higher rate of .$300, the" slaves in the rebel S.ates would be worth 
$1,049,508,000; and adding the cost of compensation to the border States, at the same rate, the 
aggregate expense of emaiicipation would be $1,185,840,300. Or for the convenience of round 
numbers, the cost of emancipation would be, at $250 per head, $1,000,000,000, and at $800 p^ 
head, the cost would be $1,200,000,000." 

These are the figures made by an ardent friend of the system, who is now 
employed, by appointment of the President, in asse.«sing the value of the slaves 
of this District. Sir, I turn from thera with horror. I cannot linger over 
them. I iiand them over to the white sons of toil throughout the land, and 
call upon them to consider well the lesson which they teach. The Pharisees 
of eighteen hundred years ago provoked the maledictions of the Saviour by 
their intemperate and hypocritical zeal in the affairs of other people ; and a 
portion of the citizens of the North, in the contemplation of the above figures, 
may find a curse upon an exactly similar offense, which will prevent its com- 
mission in the future. Abolitionism has hovered in our heavens like an angel 
of death, and from its wings has shaken pestilence and war ; and now, like a 
grizzly terror, it comes to every household for every tenth of the fruits of the 
earth and the flocks of the field. Like the fierce locusts of Egj-pt, it eomes to 
devour our green fields and blast our golden harvests. It conies announced by 
the President and sanctioned by both Houses of Congress, and it remains to be 
seen whetlier the sinews of strained and oppressed industry will submit to its 
ravenous and illegal demands. 

I now take leave of this subject. I have dwelt upon it to-day, not to dis- 
courage or depress the energies of the people, but to awaken my countrymen 
to a sense of their perilous situation, in ord*er that they may gird up th-eir 
loins and meet it in a manner becoming the intelligent, free citizens of Amer- 



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16 

ica. The present-, it is true, is dark, and filled with the elements of the tem- 
pest; hut in the sky of the future the star of hope is still burning -with all its 
ancient lustre. I believe in its promises of returning prosperity, honor, and 
unity to this Government. A)% sir, Hope, Hope, the sweet comforter of the 
■weary hours of anguish, the merciful and benignant angel, walking forever by 
the side of mourping sorrow, the soothing, ministering spirit of ever}' human 
woe, the stay and support of great nations in their trials, as well as of feeble 
men ; hope, that never dies nor sleeps, but shares its immortality with the soul 
itself, will bear us through the Red Sea and the wilderness that are before us. 
1 indulge, ill*. Speaker, in this hope, and cherish it as my friend — a friend that 
always smiles and points upward and onward to bright visions bejond the bale- 
ful clouds which now envelop us as a shroud. But the basis of this hope with 
me is the future action of the people themselves. In the wise, patriotic, and 
Christian conduct of the American people, I behold this nation lifted up again 
from its prosti'ation, purified of its bloody pollution, robed in the shining gar- 
ments of peace ; the furious demon of civil war, which has rended us and 
caused us to sit howling amidst the tombs of the dead, cast out by the spirit 
of the omnipotent and merciful Master, who walked upon the waters and bade 
the winds be still. I expect to see the people raise up the Constitution of our 
dear and blessed fathers from .the deep degradation of its enemies as Moses 
reared aloft the brazen serpent amidst the stricken children of Israel for the 
healing of a nation. I expect to see them, wielding the sword in one hand and 
appealing to the ballot-box with the other, crush and hurl from power cor- 
rupt and seditious agitators against the peace and stabilitj' of tliis Union, 
armed and unarmed, in the North as well as in the South. I expect to see a 
Congress succeed this, coming fresh from the loyal and honest masses, reflecting 
their pure and unsullied love for the institutions handed down to us fi'om the 
days of revolutionary glory. To this end let all good men everywhere bend 
their energies. .Then will come again the glory and the happiness of our past 
— those days of purity, of peace, and of brotherly love, over which all America 
now mourns as the Jewish captive who wept by the waters of Babylon, and 
refused to sing because Judea" was desolate. This Union will be restored, 
armed rebellion and treason will give way to peaceful allegiance, but not until 
the ancient moderation and wisdom of the founders of the Republic control 
once more in this Capitol. Unnatural, inhuman hate, the accursed spirit of 
unholy vengeance, the wild and ciuel purposes of unreasoning fanaticism, the 
debasing lust of avarice and plunder, the«unfair and dishonest schemes of sec- 
tional aggrandizement, must all give way to the higher and better attributes 
and instincts 'of the human heart. In their place must reign the charitable 
precepts of the Bible and the conservative doctrines of the Constitution ; and 
on these combined it is m}' solemn conviction that the Union of tiiese States 
will once more be founded as upon a rock which man cannot overthrow, and 
which God in His mercy will not 



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